Syria: Debate exposes divide between party leaders

Mr Cameron told Mr Miliband he was 'letting down America' during a heated telephone call on Wednesday night. Picture: Getty

EDDIE BARNES

00:00Saturday 31 August 2013

RECRIMINATIONS flew at Westminster yesterday as the fallout from David Cameron’s parliamentary defeat over military action in Syria exposed a bitter divide between the main party leaders.

As Cabinet ministers expressed disappointment that some Tory back-benchers had joined Labour and the SNP in voting against the government, details emerged of a furious exchange between the Prime Minister and Ed Miliband which took place when the Labour leader announced he would not be supporting British military intervention.

Mr Cameron told Mr Miliband he was “letting down America” during a heated telephone call on Wednesday night. The Prime Minister went on to accuse Mr Miliband of “siding with Lavrov” – the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov who was urging Britain not to join forces with the US in attacking its Middle Eastern ally.

Sources said that Mr Cameron reacted angrily when Mr Miliband said the Prime Minister should allow a second vote on military action once the evidence collected in Damascus was published and the United Nations Security Council had voted.

Mr Cameron had already agreed to publish legal advice and intelligence gathered on the chemical attacks.

Despite the bitter exchange, Mr Cameron agreed, within hours, to accept Mr Miliband’s demand in the government’s motion – only for both it and the Labour amendment to be defeated in the House of Commons the following night, effectively ruling out any military action by British forces.

Yesterday, a number of politicians claimed that parliament’s decision to oppose the government and reject military intervention in Syria had left Britain’s global standing diminished. And Defence Secretary Phillip ­Hammond accused Mr Miliband of giving “succour” to Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, by refusing to support the government’s own plan.

However, senior Labour sources have accused Mr Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg of being “gung-ho” in the run-up to the vote, and ­“cavalier” in their attitude to the UN process. They were also questioning whether Mr Cameron fatally damaged his case from the start by pledging unconditional support to US President Barack Obama – support which he was unable to then deliver.

Mr Cameron yesterday said it was a “regret” that he had been unable to build a consensus on the response to the suspected chemical weapons attack.

However, he insisted the UK remained “deeply engaged” on the world stage and that President Obama would “understand” the feelings within the UK parliament over the matter.

Mr Miliband said the government must not “wash its hands” of Syria, but instead find “other ways” to put pressure on Assad.

But the parliamentary events of Thursday night have left bitter scars between the two sides.

Downing Street sources were quoted accusing Mr Miliband of “playing politics” with the Syria issue, in order to engineer a government defeat.

One was quoted as saying: “The French hate him now and he’s got no chance of building an alliance with the US Democratic Party.”

However, Labour sources said they blamed Mr Cameron’s “high-handed” approach to the affair in the days running up to the vote for the failure to find common ground.

They said Mr Miliband and shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander raised concerns about the need to allow time for the UN weapons inspectors, the question of escalation, and the legal basis for action, at a face-to-face meeting with Mr Cameron on Tuesday.

When, the following day, they were presented with a draft government motion which did not mention the need for a second vote after the UN weapons inspectors had reported back, they repeated their concerns.

As a result, Mr Miliband decided later that evening that he would not accept the government’s motion, following a phone conference with the shadow cabinet, and agreed to lay a Labour amendment proposing a second vote on military action, once all the evidence from the UN had been gathered.

It was when Mr Miliband called Mr Cameron to inform him of his decision that the Prime Minister is said to have accused him of “letting down America”.

Mr Cameron used an interview yesterday to defend his handling of the affair. “I have a very strong view that we need to take a tough and robust approach around the world to an appalling war crime but I am also a democrat who believes in talking and listening to parliament.

“Parliament spoke and it made a very clear view that it doesn’t want military action so we will proceed on that basis. I am determined that we do things in a different way to how they were done in the past.”

Former Tory leader Lord Howard said the Labour leader must explain why he had “changed his position so many times during the course of a day or two” in the run-up to the vote – adding that the result was a “setback” to Britain’s standing in the world.

Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown turned his fire on Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem MPs who refused to back the government, writing on Twitter that he felt “depressed and ashamed” that people felt the atrocities in Syria were “none of our business”.

“I think it diminishes our country hugely,” he told the BBC news channel.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.